Is sharing caring?
Inspired following a particularly riling twitter thread, I have been pondering the concept of sharing, guilt, and whether it is a learnt behaviour.
In particular, I wanted to look at how we were taught as children to share.
How does this, in turn, impact what we then expect from others?
So is ‘sharing caring’, or does the lesson come with a cost?
The Guilt Trip
On Twitter the other week a mother made a comment regarding ice cream. Basically, her teenage daughter bought herself a box of ice creams. I am assuming individual ones, like Magnums or something.
The daughter was munching away on her treat when the Mum in question asked if she could have one. The daughter pointed out that she only had one left and she had bought them herself. She had used her own money and didn’t want to give it away.
The mum’s subsequent Twitter rant centred around how selfish the daughter was.
‘She had been taught to share’, the mother stated and was now annoyed by this behaviour.
The comments appeared to endorse this mother’s belief that the ‘sharing’ in this case was the same as handing over your stuff to whoever demands it.
In fact, many of the replies suggested refusing to share anything with the daughter in the future.
One commenter went so far as to recommend the mother remove the remaining ice cream from the freezer and that she should then leave it on the side to spoil.
The point behind this rather ill-natured act being:’if she won’t share her ice cream, why should you share the electricity that you pay for’.
Just to clarify :
An ‘adult’ suggested to another ‘adult’ that they destroy their own child’s property.
Out of spite.
For not being given something, that wasn’t theirs to have, in the first place.
This is why Twitter makes me sad sometimes. Is it just me that thinks that the Mother is wrong in this instance?
Guilt is a massive topic, that I will no doubt delve into at a later date. But for this post, I wanted to focus on how we teach kids to share.
Is it always the right thing to encourage?
Sharing is taught
As a general rule, we all like keeping what is ours.
No one can appreciate our belongings as much as we do.
I once helped out at a toddler group that was short on supplies.
At home, I used to have a ‘Guide cupboard’. It was where I stored all the crafty supplies that I used with my Girl Guide unit.
I decided to raid it to share some of the stuff with the kids at the toddler group. So I bought along some felt tips, stickers and tissue to use on the craft table.
I was on edge the entire time, witnessing the disrespect the parents allowed their children to wreak upon my stuff!
At one point I confiscated the pens from one particularly destructive child. Instead of drawing, he was stabbing the paper by bashing the pens down heavily. He was pushing the nibs up into the pens and ruining them.
“Let’s not treat the pens like that” I gently suggested. Fighting the urge to gather up my belongings and go home.
Why we can’t have nice things…
Why is it always at this point that the Mother rocks up?
She wasn’t there when her child was trashing the craft table! But the second someone sounds like they are reprimanding their child, they magically appear.
“He’s just playing, they’re only pens, they’re there to be shared”
Now what I really wanted to say to this mum was:
“I know they’re pens! They’re my pens! How about you stop Scribble Macbreaky Face here from ruining them!”
However, I have enough social awareness to appreciate that such a comment would probably be frowned upon.
Sadly, I have seen so many children that expect things from other people, using the demand that the other person should ‘share’.
This invariably means – “Hand it over, I want it.”
Is sharing always reasonable?
I have seen an adult go up to a child who is sitting playing happily with a toy and declare that they have had it long enough and that it is their child’s turn now… Usually in a room full of other toys.
How about, no?
How about, your kid can play with it when I am finished?
Never have I heard a child say this, obviously. We are conditioned to be polite to adults even when they are being somewhat unreasonable.
I still struggle with lending out things. Even now, when someone asks to borrow one of my pens, I feel obliged to point out that they are fine liners and they need to be really gentle with them, and ‘put the lid back on because they will dry out; I actually find lending stuff out stressful.
There are books I have really enjoyed, which were borrowed by friends, that I never saw again. It tends to make one want to err on the side of selfishness.
Why should we be made to feel bad or be put in a position where we have to justify not wanting to share our belongings.
Why do we teach our kids to hand over what they have, purely because someone else wants it?
Double Standards
An adult is not expected to do that.
If I went up to my brother as he ate a cake and I demanded some, he would tell me to sod off. If I then whined to my mum that ‘Luke isn’t sharing’, she would tell me to grow up, and go get my own cake if I want one so much.
Do we demand our children share because we want them to be kind and giving, albeit potential doormats with broken pens?
Is it because we don’t want other people judging us and our parenting skills as they might perceive our kids to be rude, purely for standing up for themselves?
How does this play out in older children?
My daughter, a teenager at the time, was on the bus, coming home from college, munching on some food as she hadn’t had time to eat earlier. A woman sat down next to her.
She first started tutting dramatically, then turned to Han and said ‘How can you eat on a bus? ‘
Now you or I may have said ‘like this’ and stuffed our remaining food in our faces… Or maybe that’s just me.
Hannah, however, was mortified at being called out in front of all the passengers – most of whom would have sympathised with her – and put her food away.
She is conditioned to be polite to adults, and had she said the truth ‘I’m hungry’ could have possibly have opened herself up to accusations of rudeness.
Why do we expect higher standards of behaviour from children and young people than we would receive from other adults?
Voicing your wants
Dr Laura Markham states that teaching sharing actually gives the wrong message, you are suggesting to your child that other children’s wants should come before theirs.
They should learn to advocate for themselves, to explain what they need, not in a confrontational manner, but by clearly expressing their needs.
I will confess that I have trouble with this myself, much less expecting a child be able to do it. But I am certainly going to work on my expectations for my children and how they want to use their belongings… Even if it means I miss out on an ice cream every now and then.
Over to you
At what stage does being polite open yourself up to being taken advantage of? Is there a fine balance, or a thin line? Let us know in the comments.